by Noelle Adams
CourtShip
a Best Friends novella
Noelle Adams
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Epilogue
Excerpt from Part-Time Husband
About Noelle Adams
One
Three years ago
I FIND HER ON THE FLOOR, leaning against the front door of my apartment.
She’s huddled in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest and hiding her face.
Her long, loose hair is red-gold with streaks of blue scattered throughout. That’s the first thing I notice, other than the fact that a strange girl is blocking my front door.
The second thing I notice is the wafting scent of alcohol. Wine maybe. It’s not cheap beer. That smell is unmistakable.
I took this apartment last week after I finally moved out of my ex-girlfriend’s town house. This building is filled with undergraduates, and every morning when I leave for campus, the hallways and stairwells reek of cheap beer from their late-night revelries.
This girl doesn’t smell like beer, but she’s clearly been drinking, and she’s at my front door, keeping me from getting inside. I’m coming home from a first date so awkward it makes me cringe to remember—mostly my fault since I suck at first dates—and I’m not in the mood to deal with this right now.
I almost demand she get her ass out of my way when I notice her shoulders shaking. She’s small and pitiful and hugging herself in a protective stance.
“Hey,” I say in a gentler voice than I originally intended. “You okay, kid?”
She turns her face up to me, and I see that she’s been crying. Her mascara is running, and her huge blue eyes are red and swollen.
She’s somehow pretty anyway. That’s the third thing I notice.
“No, I’m not okay. My key won’t open my door. I’ve tried it thirteen times!” She holds up a key as proof and lowers her voice to add in a hoarse whisper, “The universe hates me.”
Okay. No emergency. Just an undergrad who gets weepy when she drinks.
“Maybe it’s not the universe out to get you. Maybe you just drank too much and tried to open the wrong door.”
She’s still gazing up at me, and those tear-filled eyes are very unsettling. I’m on the heels of a bad date, and I need to finish a draft of my dissertation prospectus in time for a meeting with my advisor on Monday. I’ve got to get some sleep, and I don’t need to deal with the rising swell of sympathy and protectiveness those eyes are provoking in me.
She asks, “I did?”
“Did you try to open this door right here? Because this door is mine, not yours.”
“It is?” She stares down at her key as if it were the culprit in her confusion.
“Where do you live, kid?” I’m guessing she’s an undergraduate based on her presence in my hallway. Surely a drunk high schooler wouldn’t have wandered into this apartment complex on her own. She’s tiny with fair skin, a heart-shaped face, and a dimple at the corner of her full mouth, so it’s likely she’ll always look younger than her age.
“I live here.” She pats at the door—my door—behind her.
“No, you don’t. I told you this place is mine.”
“You can’t live in my apartment. My mom pays for it, and she wouldn’t like that. She thinks I’m still a virgin. She’s not going to let me live with a man.”
I rub my face and resist the urge to open my door and step over her. I might want to escape this situation, but she’s young, drunk, and disoriented. I can’t leave her by herself in the hallway.
I might not be a great guy, but I hope I’m decent. Someone else could come along who isn’t decent, and she’d be entirely vulnerable to them.
“I don’t want to live with you. I promise. Your mom doesn’t have to worry. I just need to know which apartment is yours so I can get you home.”
She pats the door again and turns to rub her cheek against it. “This is mine.”
I groan out loud. Please let her at least be in the right apartment building. This complex has four buildings, and they all look the same. She may have stumbled into the wrong one, and that would be a pain in the ass. “Do you remember your apartment number?”
“Of course I remember! I’m not a kid. I’m twenty. And a half.”
Despite my growing impatience, I chuckle at that. “Hate to tell you, but adding a half to your age is not the best way to convince someone you’re not a kid.”
“You shouldn’t laugh at me. I’m not that drunk. But I opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate tonight. I was hoping. I’m always hoping. But then it was terrible. Terrible. They didn’t get together. Or even come close! He... he left her behind. He left her, and I thought he would at least... but now he’s with someone else. And I hate her. I’ve been waiting five years. Five years. They need to be together. They need to.” Tears are streaming down her face now. “I needed the champagne to recover. But then I needed fresh air, and now my key isn’t working.”
I’m still standing over her, looking down at her huddled form and trying to figure out what to do. “Clearly you had a bad night, and you take your friends’ love life very seriously. But I still need to get you home.”
She sniffs and mops at her face with her hands. Her fingernails are painted blue.
Then I notice that on her keychain is a small wallet made to hold IDs. I lean over and touch it. “Can I look at this real quick?”
She blinks and offers me the wallet, which closes with Velcro. I open it and see that on one side is her university ID and on the other is her driver’s license. Praying she has her apartment address listed and not her parents’ address in her hometown, I scan over the license.
Her name is Courtney Summers. She was telling the truth about her age, and her apartment is the given address. It’s in this building. On this floor. Just across the hall and to the right. It’s in the same position as mine would be if you took the stairs on the opposite end of the hall.
That must be why she got confused.
Exhaling in relief, I lean over and extend a hand to her. “Okay. I’m going to get you home now.”
She stares at my outstretched hand blankly.
“Up you go,” I prompt, waving my hand in front of her face.
She’s able to talk with a degree of lucidity. Surely she’ll be able to walk. I’ll carry her if I have to. I’ve got to get her out of this hallway.
She grabs my hand with a surprisingly strong grip, and I heft her to her feet. She stumbles forward, slumping against the front of my body.
I’m five eleven, and she’s almost a foot shorter than me. I was always the skinny, nerdy guy growing up. The one who read too much and knew too many obscure facts and was too shy to talk to girls. I got beat up more times than I care to remember all through school, but I had my final growth spurt in my late teens, and once I got to college, most of the harassment stopped. I’m taller now with broader shoulders, but I’m still not used to feeling as big as I do next to her. Despite her small size, her body is lush and curvy, and I try not to think about how soft she feels against me.
I’m not a creep or a heartless bastard. I’m not going to letch on a much-too-young,
vulnerable undergrad. I’m twenty-five and a graduate student. Maybe a five-year age difference isn’t much in the scheme of things, but it feels like it matters right now.
And even if she wasn’t too young, she’s drunk too much for me to be thinking about in a sexy way.
I move her so her breasts—full and soft beneath her thin T-shirt—aren’t pressed against my chest. But I keep an arm around her as I start walking so she doesn’t fall. “Here we go. Your apartment is just down here.”
“This is my apartment.” She turns back toward my place.
“Nope. That’s mine. This is yours.” We’ve reached her door now. I’m still holding her keys, so I find the right one and turn it in the lock. The door opens easily, and I exhale in relief as we step inside. “See. This is your stuff, isn’t it?”
The apartment is a replica of mine. One bedroom. One bathroom. A small kitchen that is separated from the living area by a fake-granite bar. Tan carpet. Beige walls. Decent finishes but nothing fancy.
Mine is fairly neat, with only the kitchen bar and the desk in the living room covered with books and papers. Courtney’s has more expensive furniture, but it’s a mess all over, every surface and half the floor littered with books, laundry, and what looks like craft supplies. I see the empty bottle of champagne next to a half-full glass on her coffee table. The television is on.
“Hello?” I call out from the entryway. “Anyone here?” For all I know she has a roommate, and I don’t want to walk in uninvited.
“No one is here. Just me.” She smiles up at me wetly. “And you.”
My eyebrows shoot up at her shift in tone. “Okay. I’m only staying for a minute to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay. But I had a bad day, and you can make me feel better.” She’s rubbing my chest now over the long-sleeve, crew-neck shirt I’m wearing.
“Yeah, the only thing that’s going to make you feel better is for you to sleep it off.” I walk her toward the couch, but it’s covered with craft stuff I’m afraid to disturb. She needs to lie down, so I steer her toward the bedroom instead.
“I’m not sleepy. And I like your hair.” She reaches up to pet my hair, which is brown, thick, and curly. I keep it fairly long because if it’s too short it sticks out straight in all directions. Since I have no patience or talent for styling, it usually looks like a messy mop of thick waves. “It’s ridiculous hair,” she adds.
“Yes, it is ridiculous hair. But we can admire it some other time.” I’ve almost got us to the bedroom now, and I’m relieved to see that there’s nothing on the bed but a pile of clothes.
“And I like your freckles.” She moves her hand so she can stroke my cheek.
I pull her wrist down from my face and dump her onto the bed, pushing the pile of clothes onto the floor with my other hand. “Now I know you’re drunk.”
She huffs. “I do like your freckles.”
I’ve got freckles all over. They fade in the winter, but it’s early summer and I’ve been out in the sun, so they’re more pronounced than usual, blending into my tan from a distance. I used to hate them with a passion, but I don’t think about them much anymore. I’m never going to be movie-star good-looking, but I figure I look okay. I’m still built lean, but I try to exercise as much as I have time for, and my arms and shoulders are pretty decent.
I’ve always defined myself more by my mind than my body anyway.
“You’re cute,” she says, gazing up at me with those huge blue eyes. Her hair is spread out on the pillow like a blue-streaked halo.
“Uh-huh.” I pull off her pink tennis shoes and drop them on the floor. She’s wearing a pair of polka-dot leggings and an oversized T-shirt, so she’ll be fine to sleep in her clothes.
“You’re kind of a nerd.” She’s beaming up at me as if she’s discovered a juicy secret.
“You’re not wrong.”
“I can’t believe they’re not together!” She closes her eyes and looks like she might start crying again. “They’re so perfect for each other. Closer than best friends. It’s been five years. I thought for sure they’d get together last season, but they didn’t. How long do I have to wait?”
“Wait a second. Are you talking about your friends or about a TV show?”
“Of course it’s a TV show. They’re supposed to be together, but they’re not. It’s terrible! The writers hate me!”
I’m laughing now as I go into her kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator. When I return, she’s sitting up on the bed and has her arms under her shirt.
“I can’t get my bra off,” she tells me.
I look away quickly. “Yeah, you’re going to have to do that one on your own.”
She fumbles under her shirt for a minute until she lets out a victorious cry. She flings a pink bra halfway across the room.
“Here,” I tell her, taking the cap off the bottle of water and handing it to her after she’s gotten her arms back in through the sleeves of her shirt. “Drink some of this now, or you’ll feel like shit in the morning.”
She takes the bottle obediently and starts to gulp down several swallows, holding it with both hands. At least she’s a sad, compliant drunk and not an angry one or a puking one.
When she’s downed about a quarter of the bottle, she hands it back to me, so I screw on the lid and put it on the nightstand. “If you wake up during the night, drink more of this.”
“Okay.” She’s collapsed back onto the bed again, her eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. “People should be together.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry your TV ’ship is sinking.”
“It’s just wrong.” Her expression changes, taking on a poignancy far deeper than her alcohol-induced despair. “They should be together. People should be together. If my parents had stayed together, my dad wouldn’t be dead.”
I don’t even touch that one, but it makes my chest hurt.
“Okay,” I say, clearing my throat. “I’m putting your keys right here, and I’ll lock the door behind me. Go to sleep. And drink that water.”
“Okay.” She turns her head to blink at me. “You’re nice.”
“I’m not that nice. No one thinks I’m nice.”
“You’re nice to me. I have the red hair, and you have the freckles. Maybe we’re meant to be together.”
I can’t help but laugh, even as I shake my head. “You’re not going to think that when the champagne wears off.”
“What’s your name?”
I pause for just a moment. “I’m Shipley.”
“Shipley. That’s a ridiculous name.”
“Yep.”
“As ridiculous as your hair.”
“No argument from me.”
“I like it though. Shipley. I’m Courtney.”
“I know. I saw it on your license.”
“Oh.” She starts to close her eyes, but then she pops them open again. “You know what? If people ’shipped us, they would call us CourtShipley.”
There’s no way to dislike this girl. She’s even an adorable drunk. “Oh, I think they’d probably do better than that.”
She frowns as she thinks it through. It takes a while, but I finally see comprehension dawn on her face. “CourtShip.”
“Yep. We’d be CourtShip.”
She’s smiling as she gives a leisurely stretch. My eyes don’t behave themselves, noticing and lingering on her rounded breasts and tight nipples beneath the thin fabric of her shirt.
My body likes the look of them. A lot. I jerk my head away as soon as I feel my groin hardening.
I’m not a creep.
And only a creep would leer at her right now.
I’ve got to get out of here fast.
“Okay. I’m leaving now. Drink water.”
“Good night, Shipley.”
“Good night, Courtney.”
I leave her on the bed, making sure to lock her front door behind me.
THE NEXT MORNING IS Sunday, and I need to spend most of it working on my prospect
us. I’m two years into my PhD program. I’ve finished all my coursework and am just beginning my work on a dissertation about the family in nineteenth-century Appalachia.
I came to this university for my PhD because it’s got some of the world’s experts in Appalachian history and culture. Since I’m just beginning my research, I have at least two more years to go before my dissertation and PhD are complete.
I don’t really feel like sitting in the library all day working on a treatise on a topic only a handful of people even care about, but this is my life for the next two years. That and teaching American history survey courses to bored freshmen and sophomores.
I wake up at eight and make a pot of coffee, deciding to drink a cup or two before I shower and get going for the day.
Courtney is probably still asleep. She’ll feel like shit when she wakes up.
I wonder what happened to her dad.
I’m halfway through my first cup and scrolling idly through my Twitter feed when there’s a knock on my front door.
I’m so surprised I sit frozen for a minute. I’ve just moved into this place, and I haven’t met anyone but Courtney. I don’t really have any friends. Just an ex-girlfriend who thinks I’m a tight-lipped, repressed ass who never opened up to her enough and a number of acquaintances from my graduate program. Not a single person I know would show up at my door without an invitation.
I have no idea who might be knocking on a Sunday morning.
Finally I get up to answer the door. I’m wearing Darth Vader pajama pants and a four-year-old white T-shirt that came three in a pack. I haven’t looked in the mirror yet today, but I know from experience that my hair is not going to be suitable for public consumption.
The knock comes again, so I open the door.
It’s Courtney. She must have taken a shower already because her hair is damp and she’s wearing a different T-shirt and leggings. She’s barefoot, and her expression is sober.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” She’s been meeting my eyes but now drops hers, her eyelashes thick and a coppery gold. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”